And while they have been bitterly complaining about the paper, their criticisms have failed to spill over into the mainstream media. Their counter arguments remain firmly lodged within the alternative knowledge sphere they have constructed for themselves.

Failing to gain any real traction in undermining the Cook paper, their tactics are now shifting.

The new line of attack is to undermine the idea that a scientific consensus is stable. Drawing on popular notions of the lone scientific genius (aka The Galileo Gambit) and the history of science, they are beginning to stress the instability of scientific consensus.

How effective that is remains to be seen. It may not be enough to dissuade the public from their growing appreciation a scientific consensus exists, but they’re going to give it a good try.

Suggest that even if the Lu paper has not overturned the 97% consensus, then consensus can be changed at a moments notice

Therefore it would be foolish to act on climate change given these scientific uncertainties.

Whether they continue to champion Lu’s paper or not is besides the point. The tactic is designed to achieve two outcomes. Firstly, continue to undermine the public’s understanding a consensus exists. Secondly, undermine the idea of a stable and enduring consensus on any issue.

This in fact may be even more dangerous than previous lines of attack if one considers the implications of such thinking.

If the public understands there is consensus, they’re more ready to accept the science

While the public has mistakenly thought a debate between scientists has existed this is starting to change. That their attitudes can shift matters.

A study published last year in Nature Climate Change demonstrated that if informed a scientific consensus exists, the average member of the public is more likely to accept the science of climate change:

Although most experts agree that CO2 emissions are causing anthropogenic global warming (AGW), public concern has been declining. One reason for this decline is the ‘manufacture of doubt’ by political and vested interests, which often challenge the existence of the scientific consensus. The role of perceived consensus in shaping public opinion is therefore of considerable interest: in particular, it is unknown whether consensus determines people’s beliefs causally. It is also unclear whether perception of consensus can override people’s ‘worldviews’, which are known to foster rejection of AGW. Study 1 shows that acceptance of several scientific propositions—from HIV/AIDS to AGW—is captured by a common factor that is correlated with another factor that captures perceived scientific consensus. Study 2 reveals a causal role of perceived consensus by showing that acceptance of AGW increases when consensus is highlighted. Consensus information also neutralizes the effect of worldview.

Such acceptance cuts across the left-right political spectrum. For obvious reasons, the very idea of a consensus is considered anathema to the sceptics.

But if the average person can be primed to accept the science in response to understanding a consensus exists, what lines of attack can we expect from the sceptics?

Enter Lu and the idea of consensus being inherently unstable.

The would-be paradigm shifter: Lu at Waterloo

For those unfamiliar with this weeks drama in climate science, Qing Bin Lu at the University of Waterloo (NZ) claims to have overturned the scientific consensus on global warming.

It is CFCs, not CO2 to blame. As noted, this theory has long been discredited.

I suspect it’s revival and championing by sceptics has something do with the success of the Cook et.al paper and shifting public attitudes.

Luntz Mark II: desperate attempts to keep the debate going

For those with long memories or an appreciation of the history of the climate debate, maintaining public confusion was one of the central strategies suggested in the notorious Frank Luntz memo.

Luntz, a Republican operative during the Bush years suggested Republican politicians push the idea the scientific debate remained open. In 2002 Frank Luntz instructed Republican politicians to question the scientific consensus:

Thus, if the public comes to understand there is a 97% consensus, their views on global warming and the policy options available to them will change. Right? We crack what is the hardest nut in the debate.

But the merchants of doubt have a new product. With the Lu paper they are attacking the idea of a stable scientific consensus. They are tweaking their long running strategy of claiming scientific issues (not merely the consensus) remains open

It is Luntz Mark II.

Consensus: a stable ground for policy formation, or not?

The climate debate in the public sphere is not about the science: it is about policy formation.

Policies designed to mitigate climate change have been effectively stalled for decades in large parts of the world at the global level.

The sceptic position, unlike that of the IPCC or scientists is not policy neutral. In fact, sceptics and their backers are specific on policy: keep taxes on industry low, constrain or dilute environmental regulations and ensure markets remain “free”.

But if the public, and by extension politicians, accept the consensus then movement within the policy arena shifts from inaction to action.

So what are the sceptics doing in response to this perceived shift in opinion?

Shifting the debate from being about the percentages of scientists accepting a theory to that of a consensus position being insufficiently stable to form the basis of policy formulation.

It is well-known scientific uncertainty is a problem within the policy making sphere. One just has to look at how delayed the social response and regulation over the risks of tobacco smoking significantly lagged the scientific consensus.

Thus the sceptics are re-formulating their line of attack to influence both public perception and the policy sphere with this new wedge strategy.

Lone-genius-scientific-paradigm-busting-superstar: re-framing the question of scientific uncertainty and consensus

Rather than suggesting the scientists are at odds over the science, they’ve taken it a step further. They are now re-framing the question of how stable a scientific consensus can ever be.

It is the Galileo Gambit, the idea that all it takes is one individual (or one paper) to radically transform our understanding of the world.

Lu is this weeks would-be climate sceptic Galileo. Next week, next month it will be some other obscure scientist with an equally improbable hypothesis.

They’re looking for someone – anyone – to shift the scientific paradigm. Because if the paradigm “shifts’ (or has the possibility of shifting) then climate change is “not real”. Then the sceptics can continue to argue the debate is not over.

This new line of attack needs to be given consideration.

Anti-science movements don’t fade away they evolve: the long debate has barely begun

The vaccine debate is 200 years old

I appreciate not everyone will find the following prognosis cheery, but I think there is some validity to it.

Anti-science movements never truly fade away, their popularity ebbs and flows. Their arguments and tactics evolve and adapt.

They are long-lasting, multi-generational movements that sometimes fade into obscurity (as far as official keepers of knowledge are concerned) and re-emerge in periods of crisis.

Take vaccination as but one example.

The above cartoon by James Gillray from 1802 captures the fear that inoculation against cowpox would lead to cow like appendages sprouting from a person’s body. Indeed, it was produced for the anti-vaccination movement of the day.

Two centuries later, despite the obvious benefits and success of mass vaccination, serious doubt has crept into the public’s consciousness. We are now seeing a resurgence of diseases such as measles and whooping-cough once thought under control. As fewer people vaccinate their children, herd immunity decreases and we’re faced with resurgent pathogens. Children die.

Let us consider another example.

The Creationist movement of the 1920s started out with a very primitive set of arguments against evolution derived from criticisms stemming from the mid-to-late 19th century opposition to Darwin. The Scopes Monkey trial of the 1920s saw them suffer a setback.

The movement was dormant for several decades, as it faded into the background, a tenant of a variety of Evangelical churches in the United States. But slowly in the 1950s it began to re-emerge. In the 1970s advocates renamed Creationism “Creation Science” and gained success in promoting it as an alternative theory to the Evolutionary consensus.

Suffering a number of setbacks in a series of court tussles, creationists again reformulated the basic tenants of creationism and labelled it Intelligent Design.

The climate sceptic movement is no different. They will adapt and reformulate their lines of attack.

“Water vapour is a greenhouse gas – the dominant greenhouse gas, by several orders of magnitude. But it doesn’t slavishly follow CO2.”
I see, even though they are both greenhouse gases, somehow the H2O molecules have decided to behave differently to the CO2 molecules. Very clever.

“If water vapour simply amplified other forcings, the hottest places in the world would be the wet tropics – the water vapour piling up in the atmosphere over tropical islands would heat the surface temperature to levels far in excess of temperatures observed in other parts of the world.”
I see now. It has nothing to do with the effect of liquid water (clouds) reflecting solar radiation back to space. That means that the drier the air, the warmer it must be overnight. I always thought that clear skies led to colder overnight minimum temperatures. But, I defer to the “wise one”.

“In the real world, the hottest places tend to be dry places – the middle of deserts, far from sources of water vapour.”
Again, I always thought this was due to the absence of clouds (liquid water) not to water vapour. I will sleep under the stars tonight since it must be warmer now we have an anticyclone over us. Again, thank you for your illumination.

” The cooled air is then returned to the surface as rain or hail.”
Amazing. I always wondered where that cool air came from. But why is it cool when there is no rain or hail under clouds?

I really must revise my erroneous views about climate science.
I will also burn my text books. Thank you O wise one.

Eric Worrall says:
June 7, 2013 at 2:37 am
Say now DS that Toll, Soon and a host of other scientists who are objecting to the misclassification of their own work are wrong, and should be disregarded, rather than worthless nonsense about a typo.

While you’re at it, have the balls to sign your real name to it. I’ll ensure your statement is forwarded to the relevant scientists.

Eric that is a breach of the guidelines, re comments, has anyone asked Mark to have the balls to use his real name etc,?

“Respect people’s privacy and anonymity: if an individual refuses to reveal personal details or their “real world” identity, respect that (see also cyber stalking below)”

Monthly snow cover anomaly data from the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab show that snow cover for the month of May was significantly low in eastern Siberia, northern Europe, and the Rocky Mountains in North America. Data also show a few greater-than-average regions in Alaska—owing to low temperatures there—and the Tibetan Plateau.

Weekly and daily data from the Global Snow Lab show that May began with greater-than-average snow cover in Tibet and the Great Plains of Canada and the United States. By the end of the month, however, snow extent was near average to lower than average throughout the Northern Hemisphere, and much lower than average in northeastern Siberia. Overall, snow cover in May 2013 was the lowest on record in forty-seven years of data for Eurasia, and third lowest overall for the Northern Hemisphere, trailing only 2012 and 2010.

Eric is an interesting case, appears to be one of those completely out of touch with the natural world. A product of a city life upbringing?,

some of his weird worldly concepts

It will be good when the Arctic goes because that will get rid of all those nasty polar bears.

It would be good to eradicate crocodiles because I would like to move up north

droughts are good because it kills all those nasties like ticks

then we have the lies and contradictions because he either forgets what he has said just a day or so ago or like most deniers thinks that each of his comments should be separated from previous comments.

Mark is just pig ignorant of the science so rarely goes there, when he does he confirms that he is totally ignorant because he has only ever read rubbish like watts or idso, he never bothers to actually read any papers and just parrots whatever he finds,

of course if you do not accept his crap then you need to be insulted until you concur with his DK understanding. ” I will type this slowly” not even realising that what he is typing is twaddle.

some of the Zombie stuff they bring up was so many years ago I have forgotten about it,

No eric it was not a typo it was the name that weatherboy gave you, you did not even bother to check or look at the papers

Tol statistically deconstructs the 97% Consensus | Watts Up With That?
wattsupwiththat.com/2013/…/tol-statistically-deconstructs-the-97-consens…‎
6 days ago – The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change.

o-ho, I hesitate to do this. John thinks Eric got his misspelling of Tol from Watts. But Eric error was to spell it Toll when Watts was correct to spell it Tol. So Eric didn’t get it from Watts and John has misunderstood the misspell.

Why do I hesitate. Well we are now going to get 20 posts explaining why it wasn’t an error. That when John said X he meant Y and anyone who thought he meant X when he said X is clearly a fool. Oh and shut up and let’s change the subject.

The madness of 97% 98% consensus herds | Watts Up With That?
wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/…/the-madness-of-97-98-consensus-herds/‎
5 days ago – Richard Toll,. can I ask you what the order is of the abstracts that you show rolling statistics on? Is it the Year-Title-order from Cook et al’s data …

that link with the misspelt Toll is from a commenter on the WUWT site. That’s the best you can do?. Might have been just as easy to admit the original error. But we all knew that wasn’t going to happen, didn’t we?

It was a few days ago, after seeing eric spell it as toll i wondered where in hell he got it from so just googled wuwt richard toll at the time and up it came. it does not come up on any other blog, eric is a poster and opinion piece writer at wuwt. the connection was made
did not even bother to comment on it at the time, when eric used it again I put in tol instead of erics toll, no big deal

really do not care what you think you just continue to lie, after numerous abusive posts from you trying to uphold your 1.3DegC within a few hundred years you now lie and tell us that it was taken out of context, never even mentioned at the time

Are you suggesting my bad spelling is a reason to discard my argument, or are you suggesting stories that Dr. Tol has strenuously objected to the misclassification of his papers by the Cook study are a fabrication?

Stop trying to cloud the issue with nonsense about my spelling. Give us a straight answer about the real issue – the fact that the Cook study is a crock.

“Are you suggesting my bad spelling is a reason to discard my argument”

You’ve been here a lot longer than I. Surely you’ve come to see that that is the main form of argument in the group. You can write a long post on this or that and the swarm digs out one word or phrase that, taken out of context or deliberated distorted, can be used to attack the post. Generally its not a pivotal phrase or word but that doesn’t matter.

Misspell a word and becomes proof that AGW is real. Summarise a finding that the sun is responsible for 45-50% of the warming as 50% becomes the biggest lie since Eve said it was OK to nibble on the apple.

I sometimes feel that each post needs to be run past a lawyer to ensure it’ll past muster and contains no potential ambiguities. You could view this MO in many ways, but I see it as evidence that they see their fondest beliefs dying and are determined to cling on using whatever rationalisations they can find.

What a whinge,Mark .I address the core of what you are trying to say,and often that hinges on your paraphrasing. Eric does the same sort of silliness–offering something verbatim then immediately finding some interpretation of it that is senseless unless you are a conspiracy-monger,despite the verbatim material staring him in the face. You do have to write carefully. Why not?

Fundamentally,your arguments are shit because they have no backing–the premise put that Cook et al is flawed has not been backed by numbers or examples that stand scrutiny. The critics of Cook are few,and not credible on examination of their claims,which is a straightforward enough matter given their abstracts and Cooks methodology are at your fingertips. It is then relevant to look at the history as dissemblers. Idso works at disinformation professionally,as tax records and Gleick’s Heartland coup reveal…Scafetta has come up with some laughable curve fitting in papers:that’s fact not opinion,and the paper in question here has been roundly criticised for misleading claims. He is a motivated AGW dissembler to the point where it buggers up the quality of his papers. Then,like Carter over Maclean et al 2009,he makes public claims that are at variance with the statements in the paper. If you cannot detect that,or don’t understand what doing that means and why it is important,then you probably don’t realise they are trying to manipulate you.

Eric “:Here’s a host of scientists complaining about their papers being misclassified by Cook. Some of them, such as Dr. Toll, are so upset they’re making a real fuss, spending effort finding *other* flaws with Cook’s work.”

When i read that it was quite obvious that eric had come to that conclusion without checking even one of the abstracts, he was parroting

He had been using Toll instead of Tol for days, again has not bothered to even read one abstract.

If he has not read an abstract then as DS stated “his opinion is worthless” because such a continuing balls up would not be made by anyone who had

Eric Worrall says:
June 7, 2013 at 2:37 am
Say now DS that Toll, Soon and a host of other scientists who are objecting to the misclassification of their own work are wrong, and should be disregarded, rather than worthless nonsense about a typo.

While you’re at it, have the balls to sign your real name to it. I’ll ensure your statement is forwarded to the relevant scientists.

We shouldn’t make a big deal about typos. After all, to err is human. I mean, heck, deniars didn’t invent a conspiracy theory when the IPCC mistakenly turned 2350 into 2035. And thank goodness they didn’t. If they don’t, neither should we.

Mark ” Misspell a word and becomes proof that AGW is real. Summarise a finding that the sun is responsible for 45-50% of the warming as 50% becomes the biggest lie since Eve said it was OK to nibble on the apple”

try to remember what you have said in a previous comment and what was being addressed .

We’ve already had 0.8c warming since 1850 so a doubling of CO2 will see a further 0.5c in a couple of hundred years.” – Mark

Look, we’ve been over this so many times. I was simply drawing a picture of the logic conclusions of the Otto paper of a doubling of CO2. If you insist on taking one sentence entirely out of context then chuckle it up but I suspect that you know at heart that you are wrong.- Mark

so after numerous comments defending his “few hundred years to reach 1.3DegC ”

I’m happy to go with a climate sensitivity of 0.5 – 1.5c / doubling. Thats what you get when you don’t add the IPCC fantasy water vapour amplification – you know, the phenomenon which is supposed to produce the missing equatorial tropospheric hotspot.

“water vapour amplification – you know, the phenomenon which is supposed to produce the missing equatorial tropospheric hotspot.”

No, that’s produced by the slowdown in the saturated adiabatic lapse rate as air gets warmer and it holds more water vapor. Absolutely zilch to do with water vapor being a greenhouse gas (which it is anyway but that’s beside the point). It wouldn’t matter if there was no greenhouse effect at all, there should still be a lapse rate slowdown if the tropical surface is warmer.

If the Sun is causing the tropical surface warming, then what, pray tell, is your explanation for no “hotspot”?

O great wise armchair scientist – tell us why water vapour is not a greenhouse gas.

Water vapour is a greenhouse gas – the dominant greenhouse gas, by several orders of magnitude. But it doesn’t slavishly follow CO2.

If water vapour simply amplified other forcings, the hottest places in the world would be the wet tropics – the water vapour piling up in the atmosphere over tropical islands would heat the surface temperature to levels far in excess of temperatures observed in other parts of the world.

In the real world, the hottest places tend to be dry places – the middle of deserts, far from sources of water vapour.

The reason – above a certain threshold, water vapour tends to form thunder storms or tornadoes, natural refrigeration systems. Thunderstorms and tornadoes suck hot moist air from the surface and transport it to the top of the troposphere, above most of the greenhouse gas blanket, where it can radiate its heat into space, almost completely unimpeded by CO2, or any other GHG. The cooled air is then returned to the surface as rain or hail.

You can see this happening in person, any time you see a thunderhead.

Your climate seantists never noticed, their greenhouse blanket is full of holes.

Oh you mean the Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) calculation, which oh so rapidly changes from a high confidence warming trend to a high confidence cooling trend, when you feed it 30 year windows based on Hadcrut4 circa 1940 – 1970?

We analyze five prominent time series of global temperature (over land and ocean) for their common time interval since 1979: three surface temperature records (from NASA/GISS, NOAA/NCDC and HadCRU) and two lower-troposphere (LT) temperature records based on satellite microwave sensors (from RSS and UAH). All five series show consistent global warming trends ranging from 0.014 to 0.018 K yr−1. When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.

Fair point Chris – using Hadcrut4 numbers, the confidence band intersects zero trend.

Just like the trend for the last 17 years – try putting in 1996 and 2013 as the end points.

As for DS Statistics reveals the past signal-to-noise ratio. Physics predicts the future signal., its the Physics, particularly the hypothesised water vapour amplification of the CO2 signal, which is in question. Or perhaps you’d like to finally name some falsification conditions for your fiasco of a theory.

The LLNL-led research shows that climate models can and do simulate short, 10- to 12-year “hiatus periods” with minimal warming, even when the models are run with historical increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosol particles. They find that tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.

If you put in 1995 -> 2013, Hadcrut4, you get 0.098 +/- 0.112

Given that in 1995 CO2 levels were 360.5 ppm, according to the Mauna Loa annual mean, and now they are brushing 400ppm, thats an awful lot of CO2 forcing which has gone awol. Assuming a pre-industrial level of 280ppm, and assuming we are 100% responsible for the rise in CO2, 40ppm is 1/3 of the total change we have ever made to atmospheric CO2 content – with bugger all to show for it, in terms of changing global temperature.

Given the evidence off deep flaws in Cook’s paper, with Toll and Soon and other prominent scientists who disagree with the IPCC, vocally complaining about misclassification of their work, I’m amazed you guys are still pushing the 97% nonsense. Cook’s paper will fall – its only a matter of time.

And the CFC thing is very much a peripheral consideration – nothing more than an interesting correlation. Suggestions we are “pinning our hopes on it” are utter nonsense.

The largest problem you guys have is the lack of warming – the failure of observations to match predictions, the repeated failure of severe weather to materialise, utter embarrassments such as steadily worsening winters in the NH, including the extremely late Spring this year, in defiance of predictions that ski resorts would have to close, and a host of other failed nonsensical pronouncements.

People remember you know – it might take them a while to catch on, but after a while they realise the climate alarmist movement is simply the latest idealogical home of failed lefties, who still haven’t recovered from the shock of seeing the great Communist powers of the world embrace Capitalism.

What ‘deep flaws’ in the paper? You repeat this assertion without any evidence. You treat the existence of what are clearly motivated misdirections as evidence of flaws!! It’s only evidence of disagreement! And it is seen to be motivated dissembling once analysed…
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Claims by Scafetta Idso and Shaviv of misrepresentation can be read at Watts,then compared with the abstracts in the papers they complain about…the three complaints are wrong in fact,and Scafetta even makes up a complete lie about IPCC information for the purposes of his account.

Tol’s claims are nonsense,based on his misreading or perhaps non-reading of thepaper and methodology.

‘The largest problem you guys have’ is that you’re willing to lie,and to do so repeatedly. This is a big problem for you…you are now lying about Cook in an attempt to construct and maintain an alternative reality. Sorry,it does not stand scrutiny.

Here’s a host of scientists complaining about their papers being misclassified by Cook. Some of them, such as Dr. Toll, are so upset they’re making a real fuss, spending effort finding *other* flaws with Cook’s work.

Say now DS that Toll, Soon and a host of other scientists who are objecting to the misclassification of their own work are wrong, and should be disregarded, rather than worthless nonsense about a typo.

While you’re at it, have the balls to sign your real name to it. I’ll ensure your statement is forwarded to the relevant scientists.

That’s your reply? Wow! You just repeat charges that you have not personally fact-checked! You keep lying,Eric.

You link to a professional liar from Heartland –who fund Idso, a secret until Gleick’s revelations– who has form distorting and misdirecting for the last decade,and gets parachuted into op-ed at the radical WSJ whenever some reality threatens the neo-lib rose garden.

Read the abstracts,read the methodology of Cook..only then will you understand that you are being misdirected by Scafetta and buddies. Until then you are just running errands for your masters.

Having taken the claims of Shaviv, Idso and Scafetta at face value ,and having checked them against their own abstracts and Cook’s criteria…I can safely conclude that 1 is true.

Those authors are publicly personally skeptical or dismissive of AGW,I know that…but that is not the issue. It is whether the abstracts of the papers as written endorse or reject AGW acording to very straightforward criteria. Their post-facto ex-scientific squirmings are not relevant to what is published in their papers…you’re attracted to their theatre. Watch the pea…

You offer that I might think that the ‘stories of scientists objecting…’ are inventions!?!?!? FFS,can’t you read? I know they have ‘objected’,it’s all you bleat about,and it’s why I checked their claims!!! Jesus wept…

Anytime you want to actually read the open-source Cook et al you can… it might help you to understand what a mug you’re making of yourself.

You’re hilarious Nick – to maintain the fiction that Cook’s paper is sound, you are happy to embrace the idea that scientists who have been deeply skeptical of the IPCC position for decades wrote papers which endorsed the IPCC position.

You are dumber than a rock,Worrall. Read the methodology. You cannot even characterise the papers methods. It is not ‘endorsement of the IPCC’, it is whether the abstracts explicitly or implicitly accept/endorse/acknowledge anthropogenic contribution to current climate change. Scafetta’s paper endorses an anthropogenic component literally,in the abstract…whatever he says at the pub is irrelevant.

If Cook wanted to do a survey on anecdotal views on AGW,he would have…but this study looks at written positions,implicit or explicit. If you want to, go ahead.

Remember that what Scafetta et al say now to Watts is not the abstract of the papers under scrutiny. IOW,their public comments volunteered at a ratbag blog are not their chosen words in their jointly written papers. That is all that Cook et al are looking at….and it is rather telling that certain people are not so carefree in their written professional work as they are before a select audience.

And you’re a bag of hammers,too,Mark. Cook et al is not aiming to explore the ‘how much is Sol endorsed as the cause for AGW? question! That’s the subject for another paper. Surely you understand that? Stop strawmanning the issue.

I repeat: ‘endorsement’ in Cook et al is support by a paper of an anthropogenic component [some,half,most,all and all points in between] to current global warming….look up the meaning of ‘endorse’ : to give approval ,to sanction,to support. Scafetta’s paper does not state–does not find statistically or physically– that there is no A in AGW. Simple as that. It does not partition recent warming in any proportions among entirely non-anthropogenic causes. IOW it does not argue against human attribution in part. How many more ways do we need to explain it to you?

The methodology is not looking for specific endorsement by a paaper of a scientific bodies position,or public statements flowing from science papers of anyone regarding science. It looking at degrees of explicit support for AGW within papers themselves. It is quite dispassionate…that’s what you hysterical folks willfully ignore. You cannot understand what the terms/aims/methodology of Cook et al is,it seems. It seems Scafetta has the same problem,on reading his comments/off-point ranting to Watts. As well he out-and-out fibs about the IPCC position on warming since 1900.

1] We study the role of solar forcing on global surface temperature during four periods of the industrial era (1900–2000, 1900–1950, 1950–2000 and 1980–2000) by using a sun-climate coupling model based on four scale-dependent empirical climate sensitive parameters to solar variations. We use two alternative total solar irradiance satellite composites, ACRIM and PMOD, and a total solar irradiance proxy reconstruction. We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century, also suggest that the solar impact on climate change during the same period is significantly stronger than what some theoretical models have predicted.

OK let’s turn it around. By putting Scafetta’s paper in Cat1 Cook is saying that a view that less than 50% of the warming from 1850-2000 was caused by man, is part of the consensus. Do you agree? The consensus view is that CO2 caused less than 0.4c warming 1850-2000? Because if that’s the consensus, that’s not how its being advertised. Since I suspect you won’t want to answer that, I look forward to more abuse as a substitute.

1) Explicit endorsement with quantification Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming ‘The global warming during the 20th century is caused mainly by increasing greenhouse gas concentration especially since the late 1980s’

1] We study the role of solar forcing on global surface temperature during four periods of the industrial era (1900–2000, 1900–1950, 1950–2000 and 1980–2000) by using a sun-climate coupling model based on four scale-dependent empirical climate sensitive parameters to solar variations. We use two alternative total solar irradiance satellite composites, ACRIM and PMOD, and a total solar irradiance proxy reconstruction. We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century, also suggest that the solar impact on climate change during the same period is significantly stronger than what some theoretical models have predicted.

Groan,Mark,…. whether I explain with colour, or explain politely, you are not reachable.

How about you not pointlessly invert the methodology or one example…and just deal with the paper as it is. Not what it is not.

The paper is not studying ‘the consensus view’ ,it is looking at individual papers and what they reasonably have to offer on the question of whether they reject or accept [endorse] anthropogenicity in GW.

[1] We study the role of solar forcing on global surface temperature during four periods of the industrial era (1900–2000, 1900–1950, 1950–2000 and 1980–2000) by using a sun-climate coupling model based on four scale-dependent empirical climate sensitive parameters to solar variations. We use two alternative total solar irradiance satellite composites, ACRIM and PMOD, and a total solar irradiance proxy reconstruction. We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century, also suggest that the solar impact on climate change during the same period is significantly stronger than what some theoretical models have predicted.

“as much as 45-50%” is compatible with the rating “explicitly endorses and quantifies as 50+%”

When you also understand that Scafetta is fibbing about the IPCC position on warming attribution post 1900 [he claims they say 90-100% from 1900 is attributable to human factors],then you see he is muddying the water. The IPCC’s SPM, expounding on attribution,makes its statements of contributory likelyhoods explicitly on the period post 1950! This is also true for the specific chapter,9, on understanding and attributing climate change,of course.

Scafettas paper finds that the sun contributes as much as 45-50% from 1900,and [as much as] 25-35% post 1980…IOW a decreasing contribution as the century unfolds [as they say “..anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century…”]

…and,Mark, how does “…[sun contributed] as much as 45-50% of warming…” 1900-2000 become “50% of the warming”? By removing significant words,Mark. Science provides necessary detail, dissemblers selectively remove it,eh?

And what is the relevance of your post-1850 quantification when neither Scafetta or the IPCC offer an attributional estimate on that period?

I’ve already said that it was put in the correct category by the ‘volunteer’. That rather was my point. That the categories were designed to achieve a pre-determined result. If you’ve designed your categories such that Scafetta’s paper ends up giving the highest possible endorsement for the consensus, then surely those categories are questionable.

Let me ask you…is it the consensus view that the sun was the main cause for the 1850-2000 warming?

Note I’m talking about 1850. Scafetta says the sun was 50% of the reason for 1900-2000 warming. Given that there was little CO2 emissions 1850-1900 they couldn’t have had much of a part so whatever warming in that period must be primarily non-AGW.

A while back when I said that I thought that less than 50% of the warming post 1850 was man, you got very upset. Now you seem to think that’s the consensus!

round and round we go….what makes you think that the methodology was designed with the Scafettas of the world in mind,Mark? Conspiratorial ideation? Paranoid, even… chuckle. And more of the post-1850 repositioning…

The task was to assess nearly 12,000 papers with a scattered group of assessors. Time,resources and size of task made a simple methodology obvious.

1) Explicit endorsement with quantification Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming ‘The global warming during the 20th century is caused mainly by increasing greenhouse gas concentration especially since the late 1980s’

How does that achieve a predetermined result,

nick caught you out telling a fib “Scafetta’s paper says that 50% of the warming in the 20th century was caused by the sun”

when it states “We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, ”

on the one hand you accept that it was quantified correctly

you then state that the study was designed to do that,

then you turn turtle and claim that the paper does not support the level 1 classification

1) Explicit endorsement with quantification Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming ‘The global warming during the 20th century is caused mainly by increasing greenhouse gas concentration especially since the late 1980s’

the primary cause of recent global warming

warming during the 20th century is caused mainly by increasing greenhouse gas concentration

especially since the late 1980s’

that is what you are arguing against

nark “By these rules, a paper that says that up to half of the 20th century warming was caused by factors other than CO2 is treated as providing the highest possible support for the consensus.

how do you come to that conclusion after already agreeing that the paper was correctly classified by the criteria above, I do not see where it states “up to half the warming etc”

We use a suite of global climate model simulations for the 20th Century to assess the contribution of solar forcing to the past trends in the global mean temperature. In particular we examine how robust different published methodologies are at detecting and attributing solar-related climate change in the presence of intrinsic climate variability and multiple forcings. We demonstrate that naive application of linear analytical methods such as regression gives non-robust results. We also demonstrate that the methodologies used in Scafetta & West [2005, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008] are not robust to these same factors and that their error bars are significantly larger than reported. Our analysis shows that the most likely contribution from solar forcing a global warming is 7±1% for the 20th Century, and is negligible for the warming since 1980.

And you’re a bag of hammers,too,Mark. Cook et al is not aiming to explore the ‘how much is Sol endorsed as the cause for AGW? question! That’s the subject for another paper. Surely you understand that? Stop strawmanning the issue.

FFS Nick, I support the view that CO2 has contributed to 20th century global warming.

If Cook is including “denier” positions like mine in his “97%”, then make a decision – either my position is scientifically reasonable, or Cook’s 97% is a crock of sh*t.

Mark,the methodology of the the paper is effectively the ‘holy writ’ when assessing the material,and when analysing how consistently the assessors have applied it. You are confusing what you want to see with what is there.

You cannot post-facto change the methodology just because you’d like it to fit your story. Write your own bleedin’ paper if you’re not happy. Establish your methodology and stick to it! You seem to accept now that by the criteria of the methodology,Scafetta fits….good,that’s the important point

The paper is not studying the consensus view as represented by the IPCC,: it’s not seeking any instances of explicit mention of IPCC consensus…..It’s a tallying quantifying job,it is going paper by paper to see what each says,if anything re A in GW. From those results a consensus is seen…which confirms what everybody new anecdotally,what other studies found,and what naysayers are furiously trying to obfuscate with a handful of ethically dodgy scientists collusion.

Then you come up with this logic fail:

Now if you’re fine with that, OK. But I suspect that if the Oz ran an article saying that 97% of scientists agree with the consensus that 45% the warming is caused by the sun, you’d call foul.

Why would I call foul? How could I? If there was such a paper, and that was indeed its finding,then fine! But this is not that paper. If The OZ represented it as such it would be wrong…[and that is why thinking people want some improved redress against egregious media errors and invention BTW]

Scafetta is one paper with one result:it is not a category or a consensus of one,now,is it!?

The Cook paper is not seeking to find if there is a consensus on solar contribution to current GW. It’s asking about endorsement of human contribution according to these criteria:

Note: we are not asking about your personal opinion but whether each specific
paper endorses or rejects (whether explicitly or implicitly) that humans cause global warming:
1
Explicit Endorsement with Quantification:
paper explicitly states that humans are causing most of global warming.
2
Explicit Endorsement without Quantification:
paper explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a given fact.
3
Implicit Endorsement:
paper implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gases cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause.
4
Neutral:
paper doesn’t address or mention issue of what’s causing global warming.
5
Implicit Rejection:
paper implies humans have had a minimal impact on global warming
without saying so explicitly. E.g., proposing a natural mechanism is the main cause of global warming.
6
Explicit Rejection without Quantification:
paper explicitly minimizes or rejects that humans are causing global warming.
7
Explicit Rejection with Quantification:
paper explicitly states that humans are causing less than half of global warming.

You cannot post-facto change the methodology just because you’d like it to fit your story. Write your own bleedin’ paper if you’re not happy. Establish your methodology and stick to it! You seem to accept now that by the criteria of the methodology,Scafetta fits….good,that’s the important point

Its nice to see you swinging to the only vaguely defensible position – that Cook’s methodology was applied correctly, but produced flawed results.

Since evidence is mounting that the methodology produced a significant number of false positives, and that papers which should have been included were missed, the right thing to do in this case is to review the methodology, to see if the accuracy could be improved.

But then you’d risk losing your precious 97%. And as Cook himself admitted, research was only half the story – he warned his fellows against focussing too much on research, because publicity was his real priority.

This thread is for general discussions of how to market TCP (began in this earlier thread) and make as great an impact as possible. Various surveys find that a disturbing proportion of the public don’t think scientists agree about global warming so I suggest our goal be to establish “strengthening consensus” as a term in the general public consciousness (that goal can be a topic for discussion if required).

To achieve this goal, we mustn’t fall into the trap of spending too much time on analysis and too little time on promotion. As we do the analysis, would be good to have the marketing plan percolating along as well. So a few ideas floating around:

Cat 1 is ‘majority of’ which in numbers is 50 to 100%…OK?. It certainly does not fit into the other categories! The frickin’ Scafetta paper attributes very tentatively no more of 50% of 1900-2000 warming to the sun,and actually is incredibly unconfident [perhaps_ as much as_ 45 to 50%] No more than that,and no explicit or implicit disendorsement of anthro for the remaining half.

Tho’ these figures are not in the abstract,they should interest you: The actual figures in the S paper are 46 and 49% from 1900 for solar depending on data set,and between a quarter and a third of warming per same post 1950. Post 1950 it’s actually much more in the ball-park with the estimate derived from reviewing the whole literature on the subject available in 2007 from which the post-1950 IPCC attribution statement is made,and which Scaf misrepresented.

I don’t care what Scafetta says to Watts about how he personally thinks right now:it’s not about him,it’s the paper and what it says in black and white in the abstract,published in 2006.

And you cited Cook verbatim,then misrepresented him anyway…it’s unconscious with you.

The strengthening consensus meme emerged from the analysis. As the decades passed the papers collectively were more certain. Why not emphasise that?

The analysis/promotion nonsense is answered in the sentence following the one you highlighted. They wanted to consider both tasks during the time spent,not one then the other. It is not an urging to stop analysiing the papers,is it.

OK I’ll have one more crack at this and then if you still can’t follow the logic I’ll just have to assume its either too complex for you or you are determined to not notice, or acknowledge, the pimple on the end of the nose.

Scafetta’s paper says that 45-50% of the warming in the 20th century was due to the Sun.
Cook says that this paper falls into the highest category of consensus conformity.

Therefore according to Cook, and those that buy the 97%, a part of the consensus is that up to half (and possibly more) of the 20th century warming is natural. An unknown portion of the consensus hold the view that a very large portion of the industrial age warming is natural.

But Cook doesn’t get reported like that, maybe because even the abstract fudges…” Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.” But it would be more accurate to report that Cook finds that 97% of papers agree that man is causing half the warming ie 0.4c in 160yrs.

But that doesn’t suit the scaremongering so is skated over.

Even more dishonest is that subliminal idea that 97% of papers endorse the notion that we’re doomed unless we adopt the prescriptions of the doomsayers. I know that Cook et al doesn’t explicitly say that but we are unlikely to see Cook or the als come out and say their paper shouldn’t be used for that assertion.

The paper and the number have a purpose and that purpose is to convince people that there is overwhelming agreement that man is the main cause of a dangerous warming that can only be addressed by policies advocated by the alarmists.

But, as we see, there are likely to be a large portion of that 97% that in fact don’t support that assertion.

mark”The paper and the number have a purpose and that purpose is to convince people that there is overwhelming agreement that man is the main cause of a dangerous warming that can only be addressed by policies advocated by the alarmists.”

Turned out it was a bump – the takeoff in temperatures you guys predicted hasn’t eventuated. Global temperatures are bumping along below Hansen’s “Scenario C” (all anthropogenic CO2 emissions end in the 90s), and are about to drop out of the bottom of the IPCC 95% confidence band – they’re a long way from the IPCC median prediction.

If you guys want to hang on until temperatures fall conclusively outside the 95% confidence band, well its going to be a lot of fun for us “deniers”.

OK, so all this raving about “X years of no statistically significant warming” doesn’t mean anything. I’m glad you don’t disagree that your claims are meaningless. Makes you look like an idiot unfortunately.

“are about to drop out of the bottom of the IPCC 95% confidence band”

There’s that intellectually dishonest cherry-picking again. The only way you can get a result like this since SAR is by starting the projection at a cherry-picked warm year, e.g. 1990.